U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan came to Los Angeles today to shine a light on a White House initiative that takes a holistic approach to helping kids learn. Duncan joined LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy and a group of teachers, students and leaders of the Youth Policy Institute at a community center in Hollywood. The...

LA County is set to vote on whether it should heed a decision of the LA Unified School Board to shut down two highly successful charter schools in the district: Aspire Antonio Maria Lugo Academy (AALA). and Aspire Ollin University Preparatory Academy. The L.A. County Office of Education met yesterday to hear the schools’ appeals...

Teams from a dozen LAUSD high schools will test their mettle in the 2014 California Academic Decathlon Contest as they compete against more than 50 teams from throughout state. The competition will take place tomorrow through Sunday in Sacramento, and the winner will represent California in this year’s United States Academic Decathlon competition, April 24-26 in Honolulu....

A large empty dirt lot sits at the Southwest corner of University High School’s campus in West Los Angeles. It won’t be empty for long. The Westside Family YMCA and LA Unified are set to break ground this summer on a 60,000 square-foot YMCA facility that will serve the community as well as Uni High...

While the ballot order for the seven qualified candidates has been set for the June 3 special election to fill the LA Unified District 1 seat, there’s still a chance for other candidates to compete. The City Clerk’s office today explained the way a write-in candidate could join the campaign. Here’s how: Any write-in candidate...

An expert in educational psychology testified today that violence in the neighborhood, family income, food insecurity and other out-of-school factors are three times more likely to impact a student’s classroom performance than the effectiveness of the teacher. The expert, David Berliner, also discounted the reliability of student test scores to judge a teacher’s ability to...

The battle to influence the Los Angeles Unified School board on how to spend Governor Jerry Brown’s new Local Control Funding Formula budget boost and statewide tax revenues for education continues to rage on. Parents, educators and community organizers rallied outside of LA Unified headquarters today before a special school board meeting primarily focussed on...

The Los Angeles Unified School District is losing an average of 2.6 percent of students attending traditional public schools — that’s about 56,000 kids — and it’s costing the district hundreds of millions dollars each year. By the current formula, which calculates how much money goes to districts based on student attendance, about $292.4 million will...

Not only are students at Western Elementary School in south Los Angeles learning the basic math, reading and writing skills, but they’re also learning how to be good digital citizens. LA Unified, its Common Core Technology Project (CCTP) team, the Common Sense Media team along with students, parents, staff, and elected officials kicked off the...

Marc Litchman has an idea. As far as his campaign for Congress, challenging Representative Brad Sherman, a Sherman Oaks Democrat, it’s his only idea. He wants to break up LA Unified. But not into two districts, one on either side of the hill, as others have advocated. “We need six or seven,” Litchman said in...